573
by PegasusAcc
Summary: A quick one shot of Heero's thoughts after a massive battle.


573

By: PegasusAcc  
  
I could feel the dust beginning to settle; the cloud of smoke that surrounded the five of us slowly beginning to part. Dawn had not yet broken over the horizon, but the stars were gently receding into the paling night sky.  
I glanced around, shielding my eyes from a sun that wasn't there. I suppose the gesture was habitual by that point, for I hardly noticed I'd done it at all.   
Our massive suits lie tattered in the French hillside. I knew it would take Howard and the others days to complete the repairs. Just getting new gundanium alloy sheeting placed on the twisted, sparking joints would take a massive amount of money, not to mention complaining sure to arise from the crew. Under normal circumstances I would have completed the repairs on my own; the thought of others prodding around my mobile suit was all too unsettling. That was under normal circumstances, but today was anything but normal.  
My fingers ached from the hours they had spent tightly clasped around the suits controls. Every movement I made was tired and labored, sending pains shooting up through my back and sides. My toes felt weak and cramped within my shoes, yet I didn't dare bend to untie the laces. Any sign of fatigue I quickly masked behind a poker face adapted for occasions such as this. If I were to display my weakness, if I, the strongest of the gundam pilots, were to allow mere pain to be reflected upon my features, all would be lost. Our group would crumble and the enemy, though their bodies lay scattered about the countryside, would have won.  
But I felt so weak. I knew I was weak, barely capable of the slightest mobility.  
I swore, and started beating myself from the inside out and the outside in. I could feel the added bruises forming on my arms, but I didn't stop. I would beat the weakness from my body. I must, if I were to survive.   
That's when I felt them gathering around me. Through my own distorted vision, I witnessed their lips moving and their faces, contorted with fear, as they attempted to restrain my primal swings.  
I felt my fist collide with one of their jaws, and soon my knuckles became slick with blood. I never saw the crimson liquid that coated my hands, but I knew the smell and I knew the texture just as well as the sound of my own heartbeat.  
I continued to thrash violently for a few moments more. They had stopped trying to restrain me, and simply watched from a short distance away. Their eyes were empty as they watched, a complete contrast to the emotions I knew that they should be feeling. 

          But I also knew we bore no emotions and not attachments to humanity. We were trained to kill, to not be human. My arms began to feel heavy, my swings starting to slow. Humans felt pain; humans felt weakness.  
But I was not human; I refused to be.  
My arms soon gave out and I fell to the soaked ground. I smiled, a cold numbness washing over my body as the pain slowly receded.  
"H-How many?" I asked, feeling my throat split as I did so. Sweat trickled down into my eyes, plastering my disarray hair to my forehead. My temples throbbed, and I could hear the drum begin to crescendo within my ears. They were silent and refused to answer.  
"How many?" I repeated, feeling my throat begin to burn. I swallowed hard, but my mouth was already parched.   
"Five hundred and seventy-three."  
I blinked. Five hundred and seventy-three rotting corpses; five hundred and seventy-three families now a member short; five hundred and seventy-three people killed by our own hands…my own hands. I sighed, blinked again and attempted to stand. Instantly the earth shifted beneath my feet, and I staggered a bit, grabbing onto a comrade's jacket for support.  
The aroma of gunpowder was still poignant in the air. But the smell of burning flesh quickly masked it from my acute senses.  
"There were women and children in the crossfire, weren't there?" I needn't have asked. Already I could count their bodies among the dead. I felt someone nod behind me, but I never heard anything.  
_'God,' _my mind screamed. _'It's become so easy. So easy to kill, so easy to murder!' _ The shadows were retreating back into the hills. _'Damn,'_ the voice continued. _'Damn it all to hell.'  
_My fists clenched and unclenched in a meditative rhythm. I refused to listen anymore. I had heard the voice all too clear and on so many occasions, I knew its speech verbatim. Its words were chiseled into my heart and etched into my features.  
_'But I am not human,'_ I attempted to convince myself in a swelling rage. Yet the feelings came cascading over me, a pain that no beating could ever expunge.   
I doubled over on myself, thrusting my arms out to break my fall. I swallowed hard, trying to dislodge the lump rising within my throat. _'How many more times?!'_ the voice continued, a distant whisper from the deep chasms of my beset mind. _'How many more times must I kill that girl and her dog?'_  
She had been the first civilian I'd killed, but surely not the last.  
The sun finally peaked over the hilltops, but I was already lost in my own eternal darkness.  
"Five hundred and seventy-three," I muttered. My body finally broke, and my grasp on reality slowly transformed into crimson nightmares._  
  
_


End file.
